


some ruins are known as wonders of the world

by buries



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, F/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 23:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16073552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: it's like starting new again.or the one where the ground is quiet andspacekruroad trip their way tobunkerkru.





	some ruins are known as wonders of the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raiindust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiindust/gifts).



> this was written for @raiindust for the braven fic exchange to the prompt:
> 
>  _We won’t ever be holy, or galaxies or whatever else I’ve ever fucking written about. We are built upon too many ruins, but my god, some ruins are known as wonders of the world._  
>  And you’re mine.  
> Raven + Bellamy + at the edge of the world: setting off with a group on a post-apocalyptic road trip. Stumbling across a long abandoned city; deciding that it’s as good a place as any to begin anew. 
> 
> it's been a pleasure writing this for you as i have enjoyed your braven fics and your prompts were also very perfect! ♥
> 
> this contains no spoilers for season 5. it assumes that season 5's conflict does not take place, leaves clarke's fate unknown, and focuses primarily on the relationship of spacekru/bunkerkru. i wanted this to be longer, but it instead insisted on being shaped around moments.
> 
> unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. ittle is from the prompt shared above.

In the end, she makes good on her promise. She gets them back down to Earth.

It takes an extra four years to get there, but she gets there. That’s the point, isn’t it? Raven Reyes made good on her promise, even if she’s a little late.

Their shuttle embeds itself into the ground comfortably, like she actually knows how to throw a pod from space and land it this time. She’s had a decade to think about all the things they did wrong, from launching in a frenzy to using pods that were a measly hundred years old and not completing all the necessary checks. It sits in the ground like it’s one of Lincoln’s monuments. If they want to get their asses back up to the Ring, it’s going to take some time to dig this bad boy out.

It’s fine, though. After the first few hours of their feet being on the ground and the world having grown anew, she doubts they’ll ever be in any hurry to board it again.

Sleeping beside it for a week is for good measure, she supposes. Despite being desperate to explore this new world again, she waits, pushing down on her bubbling excitement to have it rain, to see the leaves and the flowers, to spy anything familiar. 

Bellamy sits by the campfire, broody expression on his shaven face as sharp as the blade he holds in his hand. Echo sits opposite him as his mirror, keeping her gaze down but her ears sharp on the world around them. Neither are trusting of this reborn Earth, not in the way she and Monty are.

“Do you think it’s possible to brood hard enough to bring back the apocalypse?” Monty asks her. They’ve set out to explore the nearby bush with the promise of staying within earshot. If Monty so much as screams, Bellamy and Harper want to hear it.

Pursing her lips together, Raven gives herself a dramatic moment to ponder. “Yep,” she declares. “It’s possible. My genius says so.”

Monty mirrors her, pressing his lips together. “Hmm,” he says, nodding as he pretends to mull it over. “Yes. I have heard your genius can be quite right. My genius says so.”

After investigating the bush as thoroughly as they can while losing light, Monty and Raven return to camp where the fire appears to still be stoked by brooding. Raven has half a mind to join them, but tilting her head up to peer at the stars has her doing otherwise.

It’s so beautiful. The blanket of night with the stars stitched as tiny little dots along its surface is a view she has been longing to see from beneath it for so long. She’d always had the pleasure of being above the night sky, having to imagine what the stars looked like from the world below. Being in the Ring had given her the chance to spacewalk once more, floating within the arms of an old, old friend. Being on the ground again … 

Raven turns to Bellamy, finding him watching her. With a large, bright smile, she whispers, “It’s beautiful.”

Tilting his head up, he only gives it a quick look before his eyes are back on the fire. “Yeah,” he says. She doesn’t quite believe him, but his appreciation for the stars has always been completely different. Andromeda’s probably invisible to his eye. All of his friends from their tales of heroism and suffering have either been swept up by _Praimfaiya_ or are waiting in another corner of the world for him to find them. Heracles is out there waiting for him. She knows it.

She can’t help but look at him with pity. He searches for something that the sky can’t provide. He longs for someone none of them will be able to give him, not without a sturdy shovel, strong muscles, and the determination of Bellamy Blake to never stop digging.

The bunker is out there. Raven thinks Andromeda and her sisters would be gazing down upon it, just like he did for so many years. They’ll guide them to that special door, and somehow, they’ll have the nails to dig, dig, _dig_ until the earthy floor is no longer beneath their feet.

She doesn’t say anything. Later, when it’s time for them all to sleep under the stars for the first time in ten years, she does so excitedly. Suddenly, it’s ten years ago; she’s nineteen again, with hope bubbling warmly in her chest. When she lies down beside Bellamy, she goes to sleep feeling like she’s that girl again, with her wings unfurled and the pressure of what’s to come nowhere near pressing down on her shoulders.

Like that girl, she hopes she never feels the claws of it on her shoulders again.

*

They don’t want to say it, but walking’s becoming a literal drag. They always start with Bellamy at the head, her at the rear with Echo. Eventually, Bellamy slides down to last in place, bringing up the rear behind her.

She’s a liability when it comes to walking. Always has been, always will be. The terrain may be different, with craters where _Praimfaiya_ stomped its feral feet all over this beautiful earth now proving a challenge, but her leg is still the same. She’s a bird with a permanently clipped feather.

As predicted, Bellamy walks beside her. It’s the fourteenth day since they’ve landed on the ground. All they’ve done is walk. Straight, left, right, but never round and round. She’s forgotten what it’s like to not walk in literal circles.

“You don’t have to stay behind with me,” she says. She’s not as puffed as Murphy and Harper are two hours and fifty minutes into their trek, but she’s going to be soon. There’s a hill coming up, if Emori’s scouting is anything to go by, and she’s going to end up dragging that quick climb out from one hour to several. But like a flock of birds, they never leave her behind. “I can deal with bringing up the rear.”

“And leave you without the opportunity to make an ass joke?” Bellamy shakes his head. Beneath the sunlight, she can see his freckles dusting his face, the sweat clinging to his thick, long hair at the base of his neck and his hairline. She knows she doesn’t look any better.

“So chivalrous,” she says. Purposefully picking up her left leg, she sets it down a little too hard. “I forgot what it was like to walk on an uneven surface.”

“Should’ve brought some hills with us ten years ago?”

“Definitely.” 

At Monty’s insistence, Echo brings them to a stop. The trees cluster around them, thin stalks with vine-like branches curling into one another. It’s nothing like the trees she remembers, even though she isn’t so sure she recalls them correctly anymore. Her imagination has transformed into something much more wild beneath Bellamy’s stories and Echo’s history lessons.

“We’re taking a break,” Echo says. She doesn’t peer at them, instead keeping her gaze sharp on the horizon. The hill’s a good thirty minute trek away, and then there’s the climb. She wonders if Echo can count the number of steps it’ll take to reach the top. “Sit down. Relax. Sleep. We’re going to be at the top of that mountain in two hours.”

“Great,” Murphy drawls. “I’m so thrilled.” Emori punches his shoulder.

Sitting against a tree with her head resting against its hard, unfamiliar bark, she finds herself shoulder-to-shoulder with Bellamy. He’s hunched over, knees bent and legs spread before him. He fiddles with a long blade of green grass, pressing it into the dirt like it’s a knife.

“You okay?” she asks quietly. Bellamy only hums in response. “We’ll find the bunker,” she says. “We’ll find her.”

“I know,” he quietly replies. “I’m just trying to be optimistic.”

Raven lets out an amused sound. Blinking rapidly, she raises her hand to her ear, cupping it as she teases, “I’m sorry, Bellamy Blake being _optimistic_?”

That gets him to lift his head. He looks amused, freckles standing out against that dark, messy mop of hair. “Yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”

Raven rests her head against his shoulder, feeling him relax and fall back against the tree. 

It takes Murphy twenty minutes to fall asleep. It’s after twenty one minutes of sitting on their asses and resting that Echo pulls them all to their feet and demands they begin walking.

*

Mount Weather is a shadow of itself. Raven can barely remember the gigantic door they’d tried to bust open. She can barely recall its hallways or its sounds. There had been a mess hall, hadn’t there? Maybe it was right where they were standing.

She doesn’t know how Emori figures it out, but she’s not surprised she does. Their trek from their shuttle had one objective, and that was to find the rovers. Mount Weather’s garage had been dug so deep underground that there was no way the blast from Azgeda could’ve penetrated it.

Or so they all hoped.

Raven rests her hand on the small of Bellamy’s back, trying to compel him to stay with her. She watches him openly, the way his throat contracts, his entire body becoming slightly tense. Despite forgiveness being the side dish to all the algae they’d eaten for the last decade, Raven supposes speaking about it and imagining it is very different to standing on the soil where they began to lose too much too fast.

She spies Echo openly looking at them, lips parted as though she wishes to say something. Raven shakes her head. The tension in Echo’s broad shoulders dissipates. This isn’t worth losing a strong friendship over.

“Okay,” Bellamy says loudly, instantly commanding all their attention. Murphy’s smartass comments about the Mountain Men fall on deaf ears. “We’re going to get the rover. Let’s hope like hell there’s one still down there.”

Harper nods, pressing her lips together. She peers at them all, asking, “And how are we going to bring it up?”

“There’s a door,” Emori says, pointing behind them. “I scouted it out when you were all sleeping. It has to open. And if it doesn’t …”

“Then we’re blasting our way through it,” Murphy answers excitedly.

Bellamy shakes his head. “No,” he says. Murphy’s face falls. “You’re not driving.”

“Oh, come on!” Murphy kicks the ground. “Why do I never get to do anything fun?”

It takes them most of five days to work their way through the rubble of Mount Weather under Emori’s guidance, but they find the garage of rovers covered in a thick sheet of dust. Charcoal lines the walls and doors, with a few of the rovers burned to a crisp. But they find it.

Raven wipes her hand across the windshield. Pulling back her palm, it’s coated in charcoal and dust.

“I’m calling it Sinclair,” she says, smiling brightly. “Sinclair, my beautiful, big baby.”

Despite Murphy calling shotgun, he’s designated the chore of walking alongside the rover as she drives it through a series of tunnels. Karma never looked as good as John Murphy sulking with a flashlight in his hand.

*

Although they’re all used to sitting on their asses for a good portion of the day, being in the rover becomes tiresome. Raven refuses to be the first to complain about the cramping in her legs or the discomfort sitting against her hips. She leaves it to Harper to broach.

Pulling the rover off a path thin enough for only two people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, Raven guides it through the bush, over stumps and through the thick clusters of leaves. She eventually parks it in the sun by a large lake.

As Murphy jumps out of the rover, he stretches his arms above his head. “This is nice,” he says, squinting up at the sun. “I’m going to get a sunburn.”

“And love it!” Harper spins on the spot, arms held out as though she can catch every single slip of sun ray on her skin. 

Monty and Bellamy approach the lake. Bellamy kneels beside the water’s edge, uncertain if he should drop his hand into it. Monty nods toward him. As she approaches them, she hears him tell him it’s fine.

Monty shrugs, “If it isn’t, then we’re going to die anyway.”

Raven lets out a burst of laughter. “We survive the damn apocalypse and yet we’re okay with dying from water?”

“At least it’s a pretty place to die,” Emori says, shrugging. She pulls off her jacket, discarding it on the dirty sand. She approaches the water, stepping into it until she’s almost knee deep. Surveying the water’s glistening surface, Emori turns and clicks her fingers towards Murphy. “John,” she calls, “can you find me something?”

Instantly knowing her intentions, Murphy disappears behind the rover for a few minutes to return with a thick rock in one hand and a wiry tree branch almost as tall as him in the other. He wades into the water with ease, handing her both rock and stick, and backs away from her. He stands ankle deep with hands in his pockets.

Emori firstly tosses the rock, pulling her arm back and launching it as far as she can. It splashes in the water, disturbing the pristine glittering surface as it sinks to the bottom. If it hits anything on its way down, it doesn’t so much as rise to the surface.

She throws the stick, loping it across the water with her other hand – the one that Raven thinks is beautiful despite its imperfections – and watches it skid across the surface.

Emori turns to them all. “Clear! Nothing sleeps in this water.”

“How do you know?” Harper asks, hands on her hips. “It’s a big lake.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “You learn a few things when you’re an outcast. Besides, _Praimfaiya_ would’ve killed everything in its path.”

“And it’s not a horrible place to die,” Echo says. She shrugs her shoulders. “I say we go for a swim. What do we have to lose?”

Raven stays put on the dry land as Emori leads the charge into the water. Clothes pile across the dry bed of dirt and sand, barely being touched by the lapping water. The only person who doesn’t follow is Bellamy.

She walks over to him, peering up at him expectantly. “You’re not going to go wash the stench off yourself?”

Bellamy doesn’t look at her. He’s peering out at the lake, searching for any sign of danger.

“It’s okay to let your hair down,” Raven says, shrugging. 

“I know,” he answers. She doubts he truly does. “I just …” He shakes his head, sighing.

Raven reaches for his hand, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “Let’s go,” she says gently, then forcefully pulls him from where he stands. Bellamy can easily dig his heels into the dirt, but he doesn’t. Pulled from his feet, he follows her, albeit a little reluctantly, as she guides him to where the water is.

Shedding her jacket and dropping the keys of the rover on top of it, she peels her shoes off the best she can before she treads into the water. Turning around once she’s ankle-deep, she places her hands on her hips and stares at him pointedly.

Bellamy rolls his eyes, shrugging off his jacket and peeling off his shoes. He steps into the water with her, stopping to stand beside her. He wiggles his toes.

“This is nice,” he says.

Raven nods her head. “Yep,” she says, surveying the pretty landscape before them. It’s beautiful. The earth has grown from rubble, risen from the ashes of its own demise. 

Glancing at him, she moves to stand behind him. “Drop,” she commands. Bellamy peers over his shoulder at her. “Do what I say,” she says, rolling her eyes at him. “Please.”

So Bellamy does as she asks, dropping slightly. She climbs onto his back, feeling his hands grip her legs to keep her steady. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she presses her cheek against the top of his head.

He doesn’t need her to ask he step into the water. Gliding into it until the water hits his hips, then his chest, then his shoulders … 

“It’s cold!” she laughs.

She feels him shrug. “You afraid of a little cold water, Raven?”

Puffing her chest out, she grips at the collar of his shirt. “Never.”

Bellamy wades further into the water until he’s submerged under, taking her with him.

*

On the Ring, Bellamy had always been the last to sleep. She’d always be the second last. On the ground, before a fire, nothing changes.

Murphy snores loudly, with Monty mumbling in his speak. It’s familiar in the way it gently aggravates her that the silence of the night is disturbed. In another lifetime, the sounds of teenagers had disrupted her gazing up at the night sky in all of its silent glory.

She rests beside Bellamy on his blanket, head tucked underneath his chin. He’s warm, as he’s always been. It’s just different to feel his heat during the humidity of the night.

“This is nice,” she murmurs. “Being beneath Andromeda again.”

Bellamy’s arm’s wrapped around her, fingers tapping nonsensical rhythms against her skin. “Yeah,” he answers just as softly. “Ladon’s probably up there, too.”

Excitement bursts in her chest. “Do you think he’s helping us?” She peers up at him, seeing the strong line of his jaw. There’s freckles even there. She thought she’d found them all and claimed them as her own years ago.

Bellamy hums the affirmative. “He likes ravens,” he says, peering down at her. 

“Of course he does,” she says. “ _Everyone_ likes ravens. They’re the best.”

He chuckles, it rumbling his chest warmly.

Wrapping her arm across his chest, she holds her to him. Cheek pressed against his shoulder, she peers up at the stars, the canopies of the trees around them blocking only a portion of her view. “Are you glad we’re back here?”

His reply isn’t instant. She hadn’t been expecting the quick chirp of an affirmative like she does with Harper.

“We’ll see,” he eventually says. “It’s like starting new again. I don’t know if I like it.”

“Me too,” she says. The world may be a blank slate, beautifully wrapped in its greens and its pinks, but Raven finds herself treading with caution. The ground beneath her feet feels different, despite her brain trying to inform her it’s all the same. “I’m just glad the stars haven’t changed. They’re still the same as they were ten years ago.”

“How can you tell?”

She shrugs. “I just can.” Peering up at him, she reaches up to draw a line against his jaw. He’s clean shaven now, a canvas she can finally draw her own galaxies on. She much prefers it; the constellation of his freckles has always been her favourite sight, even long since before the Ring. “They never change. Only we do.”

His smile is small, but it’s like the moon shining brightly. Raising her hand to touch the corner of his lip, she lets her fingers glide over his face before she lets it fall against his collarbone. “Hopefully it’s been for the best.”

She hums. “I think so. I mean, I got to see how much of an idiot you were.” 

“Were?” he parrots, voice sounding too amused for its own good.

“Are,” she firmly corrects. “ _Are._ ”

“You said ‘were’,” he preens. “You don’t think I’m an idiot anymore.”

“You are definitely an idiot,” she laughs. She pulls herself away from him to peer down at him. Pressing her hand against his chest, she pushes against it slightly. He only places his hand on top of hers, as though that’ll stop her from trying to rip his heart out. “A bigger one than I originally thought.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. His arms are quick to snake around her, pulling her flat against his chest before he rolls them over.

“For fuck’s sake!” Murphy slurs. “ _Shof op!_ ” 

Raven only laughs louder.

*

Polis is pure rubble. There’s broken bits of buildings, identifiable from what’s left of their structures. Raven wonders how they survived such a primal force like _Praimfaiya_ , but remembers even the toughest of trials can be defeated. Like Ladon, with his eight heads, could be swayed into losing.

She thinks they all must collectively hold their breath. The air around them is so still she’s afraid to manoeuvre the rover onto its bumps. There’s no designated road out here. There’s dry dirt, patches of grass still sprouting slowly from the ground, and some trees shooting up in all different directions to try and provide shade and privacy as this portion of the earth reinvents itself.

It shouldn’t surprise her this part of the earth is slower to reknit itself. It had never truly known what it wanted to be – an ally or an enemy, or something else entirely.

When she finds even ground, she parks the rover. No one moves. They all peer out the front window, looking at the dusty looking remains, the round building she thinks must’ve been the city of the Commander once.

She can’t recall where the bunker was, but she feels as though it’s here. It’s close.

Emori’s the first to jump out of the rover, followed by Murphy then Harper. It’s with reluctance Raven leaves her comfortable seat to feel her feet press against the hard, uneven ground.

“This is it.” Wonderment is palpable in Emori’s voice. Raven refuses to get her hopes up, but it curls around her with its arms, enveloping her gently as her heartbeat begins to rise. Butterflies swarm her chest. 

Emori brushes her hands against the fallen pieces of buildings. There’s a slab of something beneath her feet, half buried and concealed by the earth that’s grown over it.

“Polis,” Echo confirms. She peers up at the round building that now looks familiar. Bellamy looks at it, his lips pressed together unhappily. Echo breathes it out hopefully, “It has to be.”

“We’re here,” Emori smiles. She turns to Bellamy before grasping at Murphy’s sleeve.

Bellamy doesn’t move. It’s almost as though he’s afraid the world beneath him will shatter, that one measly step will see it turn to flame and be consumed by the mouth of _Praimfaiya_ once more.

Raven sidles up to Bellamy, fingers wrapping around his elbow. “So,” she says, peering up at him. His eyes are wide, lips parted, and there’s hope brightening his face. She can tell he’s battling with himself, trying to pull the pessimism over the hope. If he can prepare himself for the worst, then it’ll hurt less.

Sometimes, though, she thinks that that’s the most painful part. Refusing to hope.

His fingers shift in hers, sliding between the spaces of hers to clasp her hand tightly. Raven leans against his arm, looking out at the rubble of the city she never quite got to know. “Let’s go get her.”

So they do.


End file.
